Sully (Henchmen MC: Next Generation #13)

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Sully

“What the fuck is this?” Fallon asked, whipping the clipboard off the bar.

“A petition,” I called from the couch, eating fruity sugar cereal out of the popcorn bowl with a ladle. The prospects hadn’t loaded the dishwasher, and I wasn’t about to set a bad precedent by doing their chores for them. Not that I did those chores myself as a prospect, but, hey, that was Brooks’s problem, not mine.

“I see that,” Fallon said, flipping through the pages of signatures. They did include some of the club members, the princesses, and some of the kids of the club. But I may or may not have padded the pages with some of the club girls. And a few people I crossed paths with in the bar and grocery store. “For what?”

“Says right there at the top. An APG.”

“Right. And what the fuck is an APG?”

“A fully fun and immersive experience that I think will improve the morale of the entire club.”

Fallon shot me a furrowed brow.

He knew me too well at this point.

“I’m not approving shit until I know what it is,” Fallon said as Brooks made his way into the club, his keen gaze moving around the disaster area that was the common room.

What can I say? We’d had fun the night before. The kind of fun that meant everyone dragged their asses to bed—alone or with company—everyone too wasted or worn out to clean anything up.

“What’s an APG?” Fallon asked Brooks as he sighed and pulled a large trash can out from behind the bar and started to toss the red cups in.

“Seriously?” Brooks asked, looking over at me.

“I’m surprised you’re surprised by anything I do at this point,” I said, getting a snort out of Brooks.

“That’s fair enough. It’s an acronym for ‘adult playground’,” Brooks explained.

“Man, if that’s some sort of sex thing—“

“Surprisingly, it’s not,” Brooks said. “It’s actually just what it sounds like.”

“A playground. You want to build a playground? Don’t we already have one of those?”

“There’s a weight limit on those swings,” I said. “And the slides are too short.”

“Let me get this straight,” Fallon said, exhaling hard. “You wanted a pool. I approved a pool. You wanted a hot tub. You have that. And now you want fucking swings?”

“And a slide,” I agreed. “Besides, APGs aren’t just for fun. They’re for fitness too. And it is in the club’s best interest to keep us all in tip-top shape. You know, heart disease—“

“Christ,” Fallon sighed, then looked over at Brooks. “Is there room for it?”

“Yeah.”

“Is there anything about this that might come back and bite me in the ass?”

“Not that I can think of,” Brooks said, and we all knew he was the guy who was always looking for the worst-case scenario. That was what Fallon hired him for.

“And you’ll check over the final plans to make sure I won’t regret this shit?”

“Yep,” Brooks agreed.

“Then… go ahead. But I don’t want to hear any bitching and moaning when you burn your ass on a hot slide or fall off a swing and break a rib.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” I said, saluting him with my ladle.

“You done with that?” Fallon asked, nodding toward my bowl.

“Just gotta drink my milk.”

“Good. Then go rouse Perish and the twins. This place is a fucking sty. And my kids are popping over here later.”

“On it, boss,” I agreed.

“What the fuck do you have on your feet?” Brooks asked, making me look down at them.

“Slippers. They’re blobfish,” I added, shrugging. “They were a Christmas present from Gracie.”

“What? Did the princesses run out of ridiculous Hawaiian shirts to get you?” Brooks asked as I made my way down the hall toward the prospect room, rapping my knuckles against the door.

“Housekeeping,” I called. “And by that I mean… get your asses up and clean the house,” I told them as I opened the door, finding one of the club girls pulling on her shirt, her hair still bed-messy, her black eye makeup smudged. “Morning,” I said, giving her a smile. “There’s coffee in the kitchen. To-go cups are in the cabinet right above it.”

“Oh, uh, thanks,” she said, giving me a distracted smile before rushing out.

I looked around at the bunk beds, wondering who the hell had managed to get a woman to hook up in front of others.

“She slept above me,” Perish said, sitting up from his bunk, his head literally touching the bunk above him. “Alone,” he added.

“Losing your touch, big man?” I asked.

“She was wasted,” he said, shrugging a massive shoulder.

“How’d her shirt get off?” I asked.

“Tequila,” Perish said with a smile as he climbed off the bed, the metal frame groaning in relief.

Perish was a fucking continent of a man. I was half-surprised clothing manufacturers made shirts in his size. The man was big enough to wear a tarp.

“You said we gotta clean?”

“Word came down from the boss man himself,” I said, tone apologetic.

To that, Perish made a grunting sound as he went to his locker that served as his wardrobe to find some fresh clothes. The bullet wound mark on his chest was still red and new-looking. And he wasn’t above showing chicks the scar to get all their oohs and ahhs. It was amazing how sexy women found scars.

“Am I remembering correctly?” Croft said, face still half in his pillow, muffling his words. “Was there a whipped cream fight… indoors?”

“Indeed there was,” I said, nodding.

“And… and were there… blackberries?” he asked with growing dread.

“So many blackberries,” I told him. “Thrown across the room to try to get in pretty ladies’ mouths. Unfortunately our aim was… impaired.”

“Oh, God,” Croft groaned, banging his forehead against the mattress a few times.

“Yeah. I dunno if scrubbing is gonna work. Might just have to paint the whole common area.”

“Don’t gotta sound so gleeful about it, man,” Nave said, coming up behind me, cradling a cup of coffee in his hands. “Especially since the plan was yours.”

“Well, whose brilliant idea was it to buy that many blackberries? What else were we supposed to do with them?”

“Billie and the kids picked them from her backyard bushes,” Nave explained. “I think we were supposed to make smoothies with them.”

“I think a few of them actually got eaten,” I said, shrugging. “So, if she askes, they were delicious.”

Everyone nodded at that. We might not all think alike on most things, but when it came to keeping the princesses happy, we were all in agreement.

“Anyone know how to get blackberry stains out?” Rune asked, dropping down from his bunk.

“I think Brooks might—“ I started, only to get cut off by the kind of yell that had my blood going cold in my veins.

“ Sully! ”

That was Callow.

And that was something close to panic coming from a man who was not prone to that.

“The fuck?” Perish asked, already crossing the room as Croft rushed out of bed, going from half-asleep to ready to rush into action in a blink.

“For fuck’s sake, Sully, get the fuck out here!”

I was pushing past Nave as Fallon rushed into the hallway. “Everyone get the fuck out,” he said as he rushed up the hall, slamming his fist into every door on the way.

Yeah, if the president—a third-generation outlaw club president—was panicked, something had just gone seriously fucking sideways.

Adrenaline surged through my veins as I ran through the house, coming to a stop right in the common room.

Where Callow was standing, wide-eyed, beside a woman with tears streaming down her cheeks, her entire body shaking violently.

And why wouldn’t she be?

She had a bomb strapped to her chest.